Soon after the Bolsheviks seized control in immense, troubled Russia in November 1917 and moved towards negotiating peace with the Central Powers, the former Russian state of Ukraine declares its total independence.

One of pre-war Russia’s most prosperous areas, the vast, flat Ukraine (the name can be translated as “at the border” or “borderland”) was one of the major wheat-producing regions of Europe as well as rich with mineral resources, including vast deposits of iron and coal. The majority of Ukraine was incorporated into the Russian empire after the second partition of Poland in 1793, while the remaining section—the principality of Galicia--remained part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and was a key battleground on World War I’s Eastern Front.

Immediately following the overthrow of the czar in February 1917, Ukraine set up a provisional government and proclaimed itself a republic within the structure of a federated Russia. After Vladimir Lenin and his radical Bolsheviks rose to power in November, Ukraine—like its fellow former Russian property, Finland—took one step further, declaring its complete independence in January 1918.

But Ukraine’s Rada government, formed after the secession, had serious difficulty imposing its rule on the people in the face of Bolshevik opposition and counter-revolutionary activity within the country. Seeing Ukraine as an ideal and much-needed source of food for their hunger-plagued people, Germany and Austria brought in troops to preserve order, forcing the Russian troops occupying the country to leave under the terms of the treaty at Brest-Litovsk, signed in March 1918, and virtually annexing the region, while supposedly recognizing Ukrainian independence. In the words of Wilhelm Groener, a German army commander in Kiev, “The [Ukrainian] administrative structure is in total disorder, completely incompetent and in no way ready for quick results….It would be in our interests to treat the Ukrainian government as a ‘cover’ and for us to do the rest ourselves.”

The defeat of the Central Powers and the signing of the armistice in November 1918 forced Germany and Austria to withdraw from Ukraine. At the same time, with the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire, an independent West Ukrainian republic was proclaimed in the Galician city of Lviv. The two Ukrainian states proclaimed their union in early 1919, but independence was short-lived, as they immediately found themselves in a three-way struggle against troops from both Poland and Russia. The Ukrainian government briefly allied themselves with Poland, but could not withstand the Soviet assault. In 1922, Ukraine became one of the original constituent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.); it would not regain its independence until the U.S.S.R.’s collapse in 1991.

Communiqué from Sir Charles Townshend to the Kut Garrison, 26 January 1916

The relieving force under General Aylmer has been unsuccessful in its efforts to dislodge the Turks entrenched on the left bank of the river some fourteen miles below the position at Sinn, where we defeated them in September last.

Our relieving force suffered severe loss and had very bad weather to contend against; they are entrenched close to the Turkish position. More reinforcements are on their way up-river, and I confidently expect to be relieved some day during the first half of the month of February.

I desire all ranks to know why I decided to make a stand at Kut during our retirement from Ctesiphon. It was because, as long as we hold Kut, the Turks cannot get their ships, barges, stores and munitions past this place, and so cannot move down to attack Amara, and thus we are holding up the whole of the Turkish advance. It also gives time for our reinforcements to come up-river from Basra, and so restore success to our arms.

It gives time to our allies, the Russians, to move towards Baghdad, which a large force is now doing. I had a personal message from General Baratoff, in command of the Russian Expeditionary Force in Persia, telling me of his admiration of what you men of the 6th Division and troops attached have done in the past few months, and telling of his own progress on the road from Kermanshah towards Baghdad.

By standing at Kut I maintain the territory we have won in the past year at the expense of much blood, commencing with your glorious victory at Shaiba, and thus we maintain the campaign as a glorious one, instead of letting disaster pursue its course down to Amara, and perhaps beyond.

I have ample food for eighty-four days, and that is not counting the 3,000 animals which can be eaten. When I defended Chitral some twenty years ago we lived well on atta and horse-flesh; but, as I repeat, I expect confidently to be relieved in the first half of the month of February.

Our duty stands out clear and simple. It is our duty to our Empire, to our beloved King and country, to stand here and hold up the Turkish advance as we are doing now, and with the help of all, heart and soul together, we will make this defence to be remembered in history as a glorious ore.

All in India and England are watching us now, and are proud of the splendid courage you have shown; and I tell you let all remember the glorious defence of Plevna, for that is what is in my mind.

I am absolutely calm and confident as to the result. The Turk, though good behind the trench, is of little value in the attack. They have tried it once, and their losses in one night in their attempt on the fort were 2,000 alone.

They have already had very heavy losses from General Aylmer's musketry and guns, and I have no doubt they have had enough.

I have done my duty. You know the result, and whether I was right or not, and your name will go down in history as the heroes of Ctesiphon, for heroes you proved yourselves in the battle.

I, perhaps, by right, should not have told you of the above; but I feel I owe it to you all to speak straight and openly and to take you into my confidence, for, God knows, I felt our heavy losses and the suffering of my poor brave wounded, and shall remember it as long as I live, and I may truly say that no general I know of has been more loyally obeyed and served than I have been in command of the Sixth Division.

These words are long, I am afraid, but I speak straight from the heart, and you will see that I have thrown all officialdom overboard. We will succeed - mark my words! but save your ammunition as if it were gold!

"Tourists are permitted to carry cameras and use them as long as they do not attempt to take fortresses." - Russian Year Book.

These 4.7 cameras are deadly things for siege work.

-----_*_-----

From El Paso (Texas) comes news that a band of Mexican bandits stopped a train near Chicuabar, seized seventeen persons, stripped them of clothing, robbed them, and then shot them dead. There is some talk of their being elected Honorary Germans.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/22612_________________
“I hope you live a life you are proud of. If you find that you are not, l hope you have the strength to start all over again.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

An ambassador's Memoires - Maurice Paleologue
(Last French Ambassador to the Russion Court)

Wednesday, January 26, 1916.
When reflecting on so much that is archaic and backward, primitive and out-of-date in the social and political institutions of Russia, I often think: "Yet that's exactly where Europe would be if we had had no Renaissance, no Reformation and no French Revolution! ... "

His Majesty the KING has been graciously pleased to confer the Military Cross on the undermentioned Officers and Warrant Officers, in recognition of their gallantry and devotion to duty in the Field :—

Capt. Charles Looker Awbery, Essex B., attd. Cam. R.
For conspicuous gallantry in action. He led his company direct to the final objective, and got into touch with the battalions on his right and left, sending his report to Battalion Headquarters. He carried out a difficult operation with great courage and skill.

Temp. Lt. William Greville Bain, B.F.A.
For conspicuous gallantry in action. He displayed great courage and determination when acting as F.O.O. On another occasion he commanded his battery with great skill and himself rescued several wounded men under fire.

A Turkish temporary regiment, commanded by Hamid Fakhri Bey, acting G.O.C. 48th Division, and composed of 3/151, 1/152, a murettab battalion of 150, with a company of gendarmes, a detachment of 100 cavalry, two Austrian quick-firing mountain guns, and twenty-three machine guns, was railed to Kalaat el-Hasa station on January 19, and left Kerak on January 23 to retake Tafila. The troops had been hurriedly collected from the Hauran and Amman commands, and came forward from Kerak short of supplies, and leaving no food and few men there.

On January 24, they came in contact in the afternoon with our patrols in Seil el-Hasa, and by night had driven them back into Tafila. The Sherifian officers had laid out a defensive position on the south bank of the great valley in which Tafila stands, and Sherif Zeid left for this about midnight, taking with him the sixty regulars and 400 irregulars (Ageyl, Bisha, Muteir) who had come with him from Akaba. The Sherifian baggage marched away at the same time towards Buseira, and everybody thought that we were running away. I think we were.

Tafila of course panicked, and as Diab el-Auran (the busy-bodied sheikh) had given us ominous reports of the disaffection and treachery of the villagers, I went down from my house before dawn into the crowded streets, to listen to what was being said. There was much free criticism of the Sherif distinctly disrespectful, but no disloyalty. Everyone was screaming with terror, goods were being bundled out of the houses into the streets, which were packed with women and men. Mounted Arabs were galloping up and down, firing wildly into the air, and the flashes of the Turkish rifles were outlining the further cliffs of the Tafila gorge. Just at dawn the enemy bullets began to fall in the olive gardens, and I went out to Sherif Zeid and persuaded him to send Abdullah Effendi (the machine gunner and the junior of our two officers) with two fusils mitrailleurs to support the peasants who were still holding the northern crest. His arrival stimulated them to a counter-attack in which they drove the Turkish cavalry back over the near ridge, across a small plain to the first of the low ridges falling into Wadi el-Hasa. He took this ridge also, and was there held up, as the Turkish main body was posted just behind it. The fighting became very hot, with huge bursts of Turkish machine-gun fire and a good deal of shelling.

Zeid hesitated to send forward reinforcements, so I went up to Abdullah's position (about seven miles north of Tafila) to report. On my way I met him returning, having had five men killed and one gun put out of action, and having finished his ammunition. We sent back urgent messages to Zeid to send forward a mountain gun, any available machine guns, and what men he could collect, to a reserve position, which was the southern end of the little plain between the Hasa valley and the Tafila valley. This plain is triangular, about two miles each way. The opening lay to the north, and was a low pass, through which the Kerak road ran, and up which the Turks were coming. The sides of the triangle were low ridges, and Abdullah's charge had taken all the western ridge.

After Abdullah had gone I went up to the front, and found things rather difficult. It was being held by thirty Ibn Jazi Howeitat, mounted, and about thirty villagers. The Turks were working through the pass, and along the eastern boundary ridge of the plain, and concentrating the fire of about fifteen machine guns on the face and flank of the rather obvious little mound we were holding. They were meanwhile correcting the fusing of their shrapnel, which had been grazing the hill-top and bursting over the plain, and were beginning to sprinkle the sides and top of the hill quite freely. Our people were short of ammunition, and the loss of the position was obviously only a matter of minutes. A Turkish aeroplane came up and did not improve our chances.

The Motalga horsemen were given all the cartridges we could collect, and the footmen ran back over the plain. I was among them, since I had come straight up the cliffs from Tafila, and my animals had not caught me up. The mounted men held out for fifteen minutes more, and then galloped back to us unhurt. We collected in the reserve position, a ridge about sixty feet high, commanding an excellent view of the plain. It was now noon, we had lost about fifteen men and had about eighty left, but a few minutes later about 120 Ageyl came up, and my men with a Hotchkiss automatic, and Lutfi el-Aseli with two. We then held our own easily till 3 p.m. when Sherifs Zeid and Mastur came up with Rasim and Abdullah, one Egyptian army 2.95 mountain gun, two Vickers, two large Hotchkiss, and five fusils mitrailleurs, with twenty mule M.I., thirty Motalga horse, and about 200 villagers. The Turks were trying to shell and machine-gun our ridge, but found difficulty in ranging. They had occupied our old front line, and we had its range (3,100 yards) exactly, as I had paced it on my way back (this mountain country is very difficult to judge by eye). We mounted all our materials on our ridge, and Rasim took all the mounted men (now about eighty) to the right, to work up beyond the eastern boundary ridge. He was able to get forward unseen, till he had turned the Turkish flank at 2,000 yards. He there made a dismounted attack of ten men and five fusils mitrailleurs, keeping his horse in reserve. Meanwhile the Turks had just five Maxims and four automatics on the western ridge of the pass, and opened on our centre. We replied with Vickers and Hotchkiss, and put twenty-two rounds of shrapnel over the face of the mound. A reinforcement of 100 men from Aima now reached us (they had refused Sherifian service the day before over a question of wages, but sunk old scores in the crisis), and we sent them, with three Hotchkiss automatics, to our left flank. They crept down behind the western ridge of the plain till within 200 yards of the Turkish Maxims, without being seen, as we opened across the plain a frontal attack of eighteen men, two Vickers, and two large Hotchkiss. The ridge was a flint one, and the Turks could not entrench on it, as we had found in the morning; the ricochets were horrible. They lost many men, and our left flank were finally able by a sudden burst of fire to wipe out the Turkish machine-gunners and rush the guns. The mounted men then charged the retreating Turks from our right flank, while we sent forward the infantry and the banners in the centre. They occupied the Turkish line at sunset, and chased the enemy back past their guns into the bed of Wadi Hasa; where their cavalry in reserve put up a check that was not passed till dark. Our people mostly gave up the pursuit at this point (we had had no food since the day before, and the cold was pitiful) but the Bedouins of Kerak took it up and harried the flying mob all night.

Our losses were about twenty-five killed and forty wounded. The Ibn Jazi Howeitat, under Hamad el-Arar, did splendidly, and the villagers were very steady and good.

DECREE OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS BREAKING RELATIONS WITH RUMANIA

26 January 1918

The Rumanian oligarchy, covered in crimes, has opened hostilities against the Russian Republic. Accustomed to maintain its rule on the misery, the serfdom, and the blood of the Rumanian peasants and workers, the Rumanian monarchy tried to save itself, its landlords, and its bankers by seizing Bessarabia and turning it into a rampart against the powerful torrent of the Russian revolution. The crimes of the Rumanian military and civilian authorities are innumerable. Commissars and representatives of the revolutionary Russian troops are arrested and shot. Revolutionary troops are dying of hunger and throwing away their arms. In withdrawing to the rear they are exposed to artillery fire. In all these bloody crimes one of the leading roles is taken by the Commander-in-Chief on the Rumanian front, Shcherbachev.

As a protest and a warning the Council of People's Commissars ordered the short-term arrest of the Rumanian Ambassador; this step proved ineffective. The crimes are continuing.

The Council of People's Commissars resolves:

1 . All diplomatic relations with Rumania are severed. The Rumanian Embassy and in general all agents of the Rumanian authorities are to leave the country by the shortest route.

2. The Rumanian gold reserve held in Moscow is not to be touched by the Rumanian oligarchy. The Soviet Government assumes responsibility for the safekeeping of this reserve and will hand it over to the Rumanian nation.

3. The former Commander-in-Chief on the Rumanian front, Shcherbachev, who has risen against the revolution, is declared an enemy of the people and an outlaw.

26 January 1918
Nicolae Ceausescu, president of the Socialist Republic of Romania 1967–89, born in Scornicesti, Romania (–1989).

http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/26+January_________________
“I hope you live a life you are proud of. If you find that you are not, l hope you have the strength to start all over again.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

“January 26, 1914, was a very special day for me. I was born on this day, in Grouse Creek, Utah. There was lots of snow and the doctor was about fifty miles away. Since I should have been a birthday present for mother on the 25th of January, it was urgent we have a doctor as soon as possible. The two nurses who lived in Grouse Creek were faithful and good, but their help was not enough.

A phone call was made to a Dr. Paradese in Montello, Nevada. He stopped the train long enough to get his medical bag and put his coat on, then he got off the train in Lucin, Utah. Mr. Vincente Eriquiaga took him by horses and sleigh, starting for Grouse Creek. Uncle Oz Kimber met him and continued the journey. He was met by Wilford Richins, who in turn was met by my Grandfather Kimber. He was said to have been seen driving his team as fast as they could go through town. The doctor didn’t promise to save either mother or me, especially me, but with his skill and the help of our Heavenly Father we both lived.

Mother was administered to by my father, then the nurses and my father and Grandparents knelt around mother’s bed and prayed for us. Mother has told me often how thankful she was to hear my first cry, as the doctor slapped me on the back and held me by the feet. She thought it was rough treatment for a new baby, but it proved to be a blessing. I’m so thankful and grateful I was permitted to live and be born into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I was born in the northwest room of Grandpa and Grandma Ballingham’s home. We were soon able to move to our own home, a one-room log house, built by my father and Uncle Bert Ballingham, mother’s brother.

Lees verder op http://www.grousecreek.com/EmilyHKimber.htm_________________
“I hope you live a life you are proud of. If you find that you are not, l hope you have the strength to start all over again.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jane Morris by Evelyn de Morgan in 1904Jane Burden (later Jane Morris, 19 October 1839 – 26 January 1914) was an English artists' model who embodied the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of beauty. She was a model and muse to the artists William Morris, whom she married, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Burden_________________
“I hope you live a life you are proud of. If you find that you are not, l hope you have the strength to start all over again.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

The First Contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Force was raised in August 1914, concentrated at Valcartier Camp in Quebec, and set off for England in the largest trans-Atlantic convoy to date two months later. Training and reorganization commenced upon arrival in the United Kingdom in October 1914, and it was not until 26 January 1915 that the Division was officially organized, under the command of Lieutenant General E.A.H. Alderson.

Thirty four days after the 16th December 1914 gunboat bombardment of Scaborough and Hartlepool, which killed 114 people, the first ever air raid on England was wrought by three Zeppelins of the German navy. Designations L3, L4, and L6 made their way to the foggy and rainy East Anglian coast, leaving Germany in the afternoon to reach Norfolk by nightfall, but L6 had to turn back due to bad weather. The remaining two targeted the towns of Yarmouth and King's Lynn: L3 dropped eleven bombs on the former, and L4 dropped sixteen on the latter and surrounding area. Four people and one dog were killed in the attack. Steve Snelling has written an excellent summary of what happened that night.

Whilst Snelling's account gives an overview of the confusion on the ground, and in the air for that matter, it misses some of the interesting minutić. Even the newspapers were inconsistent, The Times putting out bemuddlefraught reports saying first that one or two airships made the raid, and then later that coastguards and others saw as many as six craft. In Great Yarmouth the craft could not be seen directly, but the tremendous din of the engines, the flares they put out, and of course the terrifying report of the bombs, made them hard to miss:

It was plain that the source of the
disturbance was aircraft, though precisely
of what kind could only be conjectured. The
opinion is generally held that it was a dirigible,
for what appeared to be searchlights were
seen at a great altitude. Others, however,
say that the lights were not the beams of a
searchlight, but the flash of something re-
sembling a magnesium flare.
—The Times, Wednesday, 20th January 1915; p.8

What had transpired between 8:20 and 11 PM on that evening of 19th January is made clearer in the coverage that continues in the press for many days afterwards. A stiff upper lip is kept about the affair, and there's an interesting mix of the typical and the tragic, as if it's uncertain whether to play down the enemy's power or to play up the tragic losses. But there are some tongue-in-cheek jocular moments inamidst all that had gone on:

Only one bomb fell on a building and that
did not explode; it crashed through the roof
of a stable in the midst of densely-populated
alleys, and became embedded in the straw.
A pony kept it company all night and it was
not discovered until this morning. [...]
The pony, by the way, seemed a bit restless
during the night, but was unhurt.
—The Times, Thursday, 21st January 1915; p.9

Some of the bombs did not explode, and two of those were displayed later in the Drill Hall near St. Peter's Church in Yarmouth. One correspondent got to see the bombs, and even tested their explosive, as reported in the same article as the pony incident above:

The upper part, for all the world
like the "cone" to be found in every art class-
room, is made of thin metal and packed with a
resinous substance which, after experiment on a
very small scale in an ordinary firegrate, I
found to be highly inflammable.

On the other hand, there is the poignancy of and outrage at the attacks on unarmed innocent civilians, and everyone from the American Press to the Bishop of Carlisle were condemning the raids. One especially resilient moment is that of the inquests into the deaths of Samuel Smith and Miss. Martha Taylor in Yarmouth, and Mrs. Gazeley and Percy Goat in King's Lynn. The borough coroner, Mr. J. T. Waters, said of the former that "the wanton killing of harmless people was nothing short of murder"; and the inquest of the latter concluded that they had "met their deaths by an act of the King's enemies".

A more sinister side of the story that has attracted little subsequent attention is the possible use of signals from the ground to guide the Zeppelins, which are said to have "spent hours hovering in lonely places" waiting for their ground based counterparts. It's commonly reported, however, that only Fritz, the L3's commander, knew where he was, and that Count Platen-Hallermund of the L4 was hopelessly lost and off-course. Nevertheless, the actions of various people on the night of and prior to the attack were said in some cases to be quite extraordinary.

The official German response was predictably in support of their actions, but Count Reventlow in the Deutsche Tageszeitung of 21st January went to even more outrageous lengths by suggesting in the most bombastic terms that the Zeppelins were merely reconnoitering England and that they had been fired on first:

It is an established fact that, when our airships
were, in order to fly to the fortified place of Great
Yarmouth, merely flying over other places or cities,
they were shot at from these places. It may be
assumed with certainty that these shots, which were
aimed at the airships from below, hit them, and
probably they wounded or even killed occupants of
the airships. This involves an English franc-tireur
attack, ruthlessly carried out in defiance of Inter-
national Law and in the darkness of the night, upon
the German airships, which, without the smallest
hostile action, wanted to fly away over these places.
—The Times, Tuesday, 26th January 1915; p.7

In fact, many of the bombs were dropped on rural areas, and the Zeppelins were only intercepted by one sentry on their entire journey, by which time the bombs were already falling:

Close by was
stationed a sentry, who said one bomb fell near
him, but did no damage and only struck the
quay. He immediately fired upon the air-
vessel. All who were in the neighbourhood at
the time state they saw a tall flame and
then came a terrific report.
—The Times, Wednesday, 20th January 1915; p.8

Since they were able to get by so unimpededly, there were calls for aeroplanes to protect the coast. It was said that "most people one meets express surprise that a Zeppelin could travel from one end of Norfolk to the other without being intercepted by a single aeroplane or high-angle gun." This raid was more of the nature of a trial run, however, and subsequent Zeppelin attacks focussed increasingly on more high-profile sites such as London. Eventually, phosphorus incendiary bullets were developed to bring the Zeppelins down, and seventeen were brought down in that fashion. The final raid was on 5th August 1918 when the L70 capitained by Peter Strasser, the commander of the whole airship programme, was brought down just off of the Norfolk coast by Great Yarmouth where it all started.

http://inamidst.com/notes/dirigibles_________________
“I hope you live a life you are proud of. If you find that you are not, l hope you have the strength to start all over again.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Sinai and Palestine Campaigns were fought in the Middle Eastern Theatre of World War I when a series of battles took place, beginning on the Suez Canal on 26 January 1915, in the Sinai Peninsula during 1916, and extending into Ottoman Palestine in 1917 and 1918 ending in northern Syria with the Turkish Armistice. Australian, British, Indian and New Zealand forces opposed German and Ottoman forces.

Edward Walford Manifold was born on 28th April 1892 and grew up in the Western District of Victoria. He travelled to England to join the Royal Field Artillery when World War I broke out.

Diary Entry - 26th January, 1916 - I left for Béthune early in the morning, to look for billets. I met Kellagher at the wagon line at eleven thirty and set off round the town, both looking for billets and doing other odd jobs. In the course of the morning, we called on the town mayor and were lucky in getting three billets pink forms, to be filled in before one can get a room in a house. The rest of the party straggled in during the day and by six we had found billets for all.

George Coppard was granted compassionate leave after his stepfather was killed on the Western Front in January, 1916.

I arrived in England on my 18th birthday, 26th January 1916. It had become the fashion to welcome home troops at Victoria Station. People pressed forward from the waiting crowds and gave me packets of cigarettes and chocolate. Religious organizations provided lashings of buffet fare and hot drinks. It was just marvellous for a Tommy's homecoming. Leave men carried their rifles, and this usually indicated that they had arrived from the front. Most people knew this, and when I went into a pub at East Croydon it never cost me a penny. It was a wonderful thing to feel that people really did care about the Tommies.

The First World War memorial on the side of the Thompson Pump House was designed and made by the Northern Irish artist Sophia Rosamond Praeger (1867-1954).The shipyard war memorial was commissioned by Frank Workmanand his wife to commemorate the men from their Belfast shipyard who had fought in the Great War, and especially their only son Edward Workman, who had been one of the managing directors of the shipyard, and who had died from wounds sustained in action on the 26 January 1916.The memorial was unveiled by Sir Edward Carson on the 8 August 1919. The inscription above the memorial reads, ‘Eternal Honour giver Hail and Farewell to those who died in that full splendour of heroic pride that we might live. In memory of the officers and men of the Belfast Shipyard who fell in the Great War 1914-1918’.After the closure of the Workman, Clark & Co shipyard, in September 1935, the First World War memorial was relocated to the Thompson Pump House where it can be seen today.

It would be impossible to discuss the warfare of 1918 without mentioning the immense impact of "landships" or tanks. The evolution of their use was a long process. In the earlier years of the war, there was some doubt as to their effectiveness and worth. There is some debate about the origin of the word "tank". However, it is commonly accepted that it derived from the term "water carrier" - the innocent name tanks were initially given to divert any enemy attention from this new war project. The very first tank- the Mark I- was used on 26 January 1916.

An interesting question arises as to what would have happened if the ICA had gone out on their own in January 1916, as intended. Did Connolly see such an insurrection as a token gesture doomed to defeat, or did he hope it might spark off a more general rising. Asked if the time was ripe for revolution in Ireland in 1915 he had replied with “You never know if the time is ripe until you try. If you succeed the time is ripe, if not, then it was not ripe.” (8) Shortly after the deal with the IRB was reached, he wrote in the Workers Republic (Jan 26 1916) “Revolutionists who shirk from giving blow for blow until the great day has arrived, and they have every shoe-string in its place, and every man has got his gun, and the enemy has kindly consented to postpone action in order not to needlessly harry the revolutionists, nor disarrange their plans - such revolutionists only exist in two places - the comic opera stage, and the stage of Irish national politics.”

26th January 1916 - At dinner to-night H.I.M. talked about empires and republics; his own ideas as a young man were that he had, of course, a great responsibility, and felt that the people over whom he ruled were so numerous and so varying in blood and temperament, different altogether from our Western Europeans, that an Emperor was a vital necessity to them.

His first visit to the Caucasus had made a great impression on him and confirmed him in his views.

The United States of America, he said, was an entirely different matter, and the two cases could not be compared. In this country, many as were the problems and the difficulties, their sense of imagination, their intense religious feeling and their habits and customs generally made a crown necessary, and he believed this must be so for a very long time, that a certain amount of decentralisation of authority was, of course, necessary, but that the great and decisive power must rest with the Crown. The powers of the Duma must go slowly, because of the difficulties of pushing on education at any reasonably fast rate among all these masses of his subjects.

At the beginning Of February I was away at Odessa to see that port and the flying school, etc., returning to Headquarters to see the Emperor, which I did on 14th February, concerning the question of the dispatch of a Russian general to England and France.

The matter was in discussion with Alexeieff, of course, but the Emperor's personal knowledge of England and the English language made him frequently prefer to go into these questions personally.

I told him quite frankly that the British Army was now a much larger one, and of course a most important factor in the final decision, which had not been quite grasped by many Russians, whose minds seemed to rest on our little Expeditionary Force as still being the limit of what we could do in placing numbers in the field. To this he cordially acquiesced, saying: 'I should think so indeed; the number of divisions you have placed in France is marvellous.'

Brothers died in 1916 - listing of known sets of brothers who died on the same date in 1916.

26 January 1916 - Ernest, 25, and Vender Hunter, 19, died while serving with the 12th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry. Sons of William Hunter, they were both maried men: Ernest to Hannah Emma Bell (formerly Hunter) of 28 Front Street., Leadgate, Co. Durham, and Vender to Mary Isabella Hunter of 10 Unity Terrace, New Kyo, Annfield Plain, Co. Durham. The brothers, believed to have been killed in the same shell explosion, are buried in adjacent graves in X Farm Cemetery at La Chapelle d'Armentieres. A third brother had already lost his life while serving with the Royal Naval Division.

http://www.1914-1918.net/brothers1916.htm_________________
“I hope you live a life you are proud of. If you find that you are not, l hope you have the strength to start all over again.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Hallsands is a deserted village and beach in south Devon, England, in a precarious position between cliffs and the sea, between Beesands to the north and Start Point to the south. (...)

On 26 January 1917, a combination of easterly gales and exceptionally high tides breached Hallsands' defences, and by the end of that year only one house remained habitable. The villagers' fight for compensation took seven years.

His Majesty the KING has been graciously pleased to confer the Military Cross on the undermentioned Officers and Warrant Officers, in recognition of their gallantry and devotion to duty in1 the Field: -

Temp. 2nd Lt. Edmund Charles Blunden, B. Suss. B.
For conspicuous gallantry in action. He displayed great courage and determination when in charge of a carrying party under heavy fire. He has previously done fine work.

The Finnish Civil War was a part of the national and social turmoil caused by World War I (1914–1918) in Europe. The civil war was fought in Finland from 27 January to 15 May 1918 between the forces of the Social Democrats led by the People's Deputation of Finland, commonly called the "Reds" (punaiset), and the forces of the nonsocialist, conservative-led Senate, commonly called the "Whites" (valkoiset).

(...) The official starting date of the Finnish Civil War is a matter for debate. The first serious battles were fought during 17–20 January in Viipuri province, mainly for control of the town of Viipuri and to win the race for weapons. The White order to engage was issued on 25 January. On 27 January the White Guards tried to capture trains carrying a large shipment of weapons from Petrograd to Viipuri, as promised to the Reds by Lenin. They also continued disarmament of Russian garrisons, initiated in Karelia on 23, by a major operation in Ostrobothnia during the early hours of 28 January. The Red Order of Revolution was issued on 26 January, and on the same day all the Worker's Guards joined together to form the Red Guard of Finland. The large scale mobilization of the Red Guards began in the late evening of 27 January, but some of the Guards located along the Viipuri-Tampere railway had been alerted beforehand to safeguard the Russian trains of arms on 24–26 January, and a 250-strong Finnish Red unit escorted the trains from Petrograd to Viipuri. Around 60 Finns, Red and White, died in "Battle of the Rahja Trains" in the Karelian Isthmus on 27 January 1918.

A symbolic date for the start of the war could be 26 January, when a group of Reds climbed the tower of Helsinki Workers' Hall and lit a red lantern to mark the start of the second major rebellion in the history of Finland.

Children Dancing at a Party by Norman Rockwell, January 26, 1918 Issue of The Saturday Evening Post

When this was published, World War I was in full swing. Americans needed a distraction from the grim realities of war. Rockwell was just the one to provide that distraction.

In this painting, Norman Rockwell returned to what he knew best. Children in humorous situations, such as presented here, had long been a staple of popular magazines.

The humorous situation in this painting is one to which most of us can relate. Even when the social situation called for pretending like nothing happened, most of us have been either the toe stepper or steppee.

Here we see two young couples at a party dancing. All the children are dressed in their nice clothes. All are wearing party hats, except one.

The girl whose toe has been stepped on has lost her hat on the floor. It must have toppled when she jumped and grabbed her foot. She seems to be asking her dance partner "Why did you do that?"

Her dance partner looks embarassed at all the commotion. He seems to be saying "It was just an accident," and his body language seems to confirm this. Not to mention his red cheeks.

The couple behind them are both grinning. Perhaps they are amused, or perhaps they are relieved. Either way, it happened to someone else, instead of them.

26 Jan 1918 - George Patton was promoted to the temporary rank of major.

At the onset of the American entry into WW1, Pershing promoted Patton to the rank of captain. When Patton requested a command leading troops at the front, Pershing assigned him to the newly formed Tank Corps. In this role, he initially observed actions of French tank units to learn about these new weapons. On 23 Mar 1918, he received his first ten tanks at the Tank School and Center at Langres, France; he personally backed seven of the ten French-built light tanks off of the train that delivered them. In Aug 1918, he became the commanding officer of the US 1st Provisional Tank Brigade (re-designated the 304th Tank Brigade on 6 Nov). With that unit, he participated in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel and in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. On 26 Sep 1918, he was wounded in the left leg while leading six soldiers and one tank in an attack on German machine gun positions near Cheppy, France; the war would end while he recovered from this injury. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the Purple Heart medal for his WW1 service.

Boy 1st Class Frank David Tavender (5729, HMAS Sydney) was born on 27 April 1901 in Angaston, SA. He died from a head injury on 26 January 1918, aged 16 years 8 months, while his ship was on service at Scapa Flow. He is buried at the Lyness Royal Naval Cemetery, Orkney.

Tuition was given in judo, kendo (swordsmanship) and other aspects of Japanese culture; Tani continued as instructor until a stroke forced him to retire in 1937. Koizumi was to European judo what Kano was to world judo. He first came to Britain in 1906 and after a few years in the USA he returned to open the Budokwai as a cultural centre and social club for the Japanese community in London. The official opening took place on 26 January 1918 and within 4 months the membership had grown to 44 including 2 Englishmen.

BIG HEART, Okla.-Eight people were killed and more than a score severely injured when a wagon carrying nitroglycerine belonging to the Eastern Torpedo Company exploded in the heart of the residence district here today.

WALTER ENGLISH, of Tulsa, 44, driver and BOB KINDA, also on the wagon, were blown to atoms.

The residence of LATH HARRIS, in front of which the explosion occurred, was levelled to the ground. HARRIS and his wife were perhaps fatally wounded and their three-year-old baby boy was killed. Seven other houses in the vicinity were wrecked.

The explosion broke every window in the town and shook the ground for hundreds of yards around. All telegraph and telephone communication was destroyed.

Big Heart has only one doctor. He had a corps of workers attending to the dead and wounded. Pawhuska, Okla, sent physicians and rescue workers in motor cars to the scene.

Not all the bodies of the dead and wounded were recovered from the ruins of the houses and casualties may exceed first figures.

Only two quarts of ntroglycerin [sic] were in the wagon. The cause of the explosion is unknown.

I have already had occasion at the last session of the Central Executive Committee to point out that the next six months will be particularly difficult for the Soviet Re-public. During the first six months of 1918 we procured 28,000,000 poods of grain, and during the second 67,000,000 poods. The first six months of 1919 will be more difficult than the preceding.

The food shortage is growing more and more acute. Typhus is becoming an extremely serious menace. Heroic efforts are required, but what we are doing is far from enough.

Can we save the situation?

Certainly. The capture of Ufa and Orenburg, our victo-ries in the South and the success of the Soviet uprising in the Ukraine[1] open up very favourable prospects.

We are now in a position to procure far more grain than is required for semi-starvation food rations.

Millions of poods of grain have already been delivered in the East. They are being held up by the bad state of the transport system. In the South, the liberation of the entire Voronezh Gubernia and part of the Don region from Krasnov’s Cossacks makes it fully possible to procure considerable quantities of grain, over and above our previous calculations. Finally, the grain surplus in the Ukraine is truly enormous, and the Soviet Government of the Ukraine is offering to help us.

Not only can we now obviate famine, but we can even fully satisfy the starving population of non-agricultural Russia.

The whole trouble lies in the bad state of transport and the tremendous shortage of food workers.

Every effort must be made and we must stir the mass of workers into action. We must definitely get out of the habitual, everyday rut of life and work. We must pull ourselves together. We must set about the revolutionary mobilisation of people for food and transport work. We must not confine ourselves to “current” work, but go beyond its bounds and discover new methods of securing additional forces.

On the most “cautious” and even pessimistic estimate, we now have very weighty grounds for believing that a victory over famine and typhus in these six months (and such a victory is perfectly feasible) will lead to a radical improvement in the whole economic situation, for the es-tablishment of contact with the Ukraine and Tashkent removes the main and basic causes of the shortage and dearth of raw materials.

Of course, the hungry masses are exhausted, and that exhaustion is at times more than human strength can endure. But there is a way out, and renewed energy is undoubtedly possible, all the more since the growth of the proletarian ossi revolution all over the world is becoming increasingly apparent and promises a radical improvement in our foreign as well as our home affairs.

We must pull ourselves together.

Every Party organisation, every trade union, every group of organised workers, and even workers who are not organised but are anxious to “tackle” the famine-every group of Soviet workers and citizens generally must ask themselves the following questions:

What can we do to extend and intensify the national crusade against the famine?

Can we replace male labour by female labour and thus release more men for the difficult duties of transport and food work?

Can we provide commissars for the engine and carriage repair shops?

Can we provide rank-and-file workers for the food army?

Should we not assign every tenth or fifth man from our midst, from our-group, from our factory, etc., to the food army, or for exceptionally difficult and arduous work in the railway shops?

Are not some of us engaged in Soviet or other work which might be relaxed or even suspended altogether without undermining the main foundations of the state? Is it not our duty to mobilise such workers immediately for food and transport work?

Let as many people as possible go into action and deal one more blow to that accursed maxim of the old capital-ist society, a maxim which we have inherited from that society and which infects and spoils every one of us in one degree or another, the maxim “every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost". It is this heritage from predatory, sordid and bloody capitalism that is stifling us, crushing us, oppressing, ruining and frustrating us more than anything else. We cannot rid ourselves of this heritage at once. It must be fought incessantly; more than one cru-sade will have to be declared and conducted against it.

We can save the millions and tens of millions from fa-mine and typhus. Salvation is at hand. The famine and typhus crisis hovering over us can be vanquished, and vanquished completely. It would be absurd, foolish, shame-ful to give way to despair. To stampede pelimell, every man for himself, and each as he knows best, just to “get out of the fix” oneself somehow, to shove back the more feeble and push forward alone, would be to desert, to aban-don the sick and exhausted comrades and to make the over-all situation even worse.

We have created the firm foundation of a Red Army, which has now forced its way through incredible difficulties, through the iron wall of the armies of the landowners and capitalists supported by the fabulously wealthy British and French multimillionaires, forced its way through to the principal sources of raw materials, to grain, cotton and coal. We created that foundation by working in a new way, by political propaganda at the front, by organising the Communists of our army, by the self-sacrificing organisation and struggle of the best of the workers.

We have gained a number of successes botli on the exter-nal, military front and on the home front, in the fight against the exploiters, against sabotage, and for the difficult, arduous, thorny but correct path of socialist construction. We are on the verge of a complete and decisive victory both at home and on an international scale.

A little more effort, and we shall escape from the tenacious clutches of famine.

What we have done and are doing for the Red Army we must also do, and with redoubled energies, to step up, extend and intensify food and transport work. All our best workers must do this work. A place will be found for every-body who is anxious and able to work. Everybody who wishes can help to achieve an organised and mass victory over devastation and famine. Every active force, every talent, every speciality, every trade, every thoughtful individual can and must be found employment in this peace army of food and transport workers-a peace army which, to achieve complete victory, must now support the Red Army and consolidate and follow up its victories.

Bangja, Crown Princess Euimin of Korea, Nashimotonomiya Masako. Original caption: "Princess Nashi-no-Moto, one of the most beautiful of the imperial princesses of Tokio, who is betrothed to Prince Li of Korea"

I have got off of the trucks now and I'm driving a light "White" passenger bus. I make trips all over the country hauling officers & Liberty parties. I work nights & sleep days. I took a trip the other day to a town quite a little distance from Brest . I had never been there before but I knew the general lay of the country and the main roads. I went the main road to this town. I had to go through some large gates for most all of the towns over here are walled in with moats around them. The gates were closed when I got to them for they all close at 9 o'clock . I sure had an awful time rousing the people in the little stone house that took care of the gates. A little old woman came out and opened them for me. I don't know such an awful lot of French. I made her understand that I wanted to get through the gates all right. But after she came out in that awful cold night air, she started to jabber the French lingo so fast I didn't know what she was talking about. I guess she wasn't saying anything good about me. So I tips her with a couple of Franks. After I gave the money to her, she was as polite to me as you please. I gets out there all right and finds the officers that I went for. They said they would show me a new way back so I turns through a large arch and goes by the walls of an old castle. I traveled quite a distance and I was going deeper into a large forest and it was about twelve o'clock at night. We went so far that the roads were getting narrow and awful bad that we couldn't go much farther. We met a French sentry and the officer asked him if we were on the right road to Brest . He said we couldn't go any farther on that road for it was too muddy and wasn't the right road. So we turns around and have to go all the way back to the main road. I finally found the right road and got into the station all right.

I usually make trips like these all over the country at nights and there is sure some sights to see, old castles, large arches that have been up for centuries, for this part of the country is one of the oldest places in France. I wish you were here to see some of the scenery for it is entirely different from the scenery in the States. Everything is built out of stone, streets, houses, walls, even their electric & telephone poles are stone or concrete.